Saturday, September 19, 2015

Will The Void Become The Ultimate Virtual Reality Experience?

Will A Revolutionary Theme Park Experience Called The VoidBecome A Precursor to The Ultimate Virtual Reality Experience?

More important, could the technology platform that forms the foundation of The Void represent the holy grail of Virtual Reality (VR), opening up applications previously thought only appropriate for Augmented Reality (AR)?

Anyone who has followed this blog along with my LinkedIn and Twitter posts over the past two years knows that I believe VR will win an important but narrow demographic, primarily gamers in addition to entertainment shorts and simulation experiences. Augmented Reality, on the other hand will find viable applications in industry, education, medicine, games, travel, etc, etc. I've gone so far as to predict Augmented and Mixed reality will become ubiquitous in our everyday lives in 3 to 5 years with VR achieving a more modest market profile. One of the primary reasons for this opinion is the fact that AR is available today to anyone in possession of an IOS or Android phone or tablet... with Magic Leap potentially emerging as the ultimate wearable AR device. Indeed, it's only a matter of time until the many applications of AR become sufficiently refined to the point where they become both useful and practical in our daily lives.

Though my opinion has not radically changed, I recently sat down with Ken Bretschneider, Founder and CEO of what I can only classify as a revolutionary new concept in VR called The Void. Speaking with Ken, I learned about his team's innovations in VR opticals, full body VR, 4D, game play, and most important creative real world environments that actually transform into virtual environments that you navigate, explore, physically manipulate and engage in a truly immersive manner. Imagine participating in a multiplayer, first person shooter game where you're actually inside and walking around the physical game environment. With The Void, perhaps many of the most popular games such as Call of Duty or new experiences such as Avatar World or Ghost Busters or even old favorites like Doom will become places you can physically navigate on foot, experiencing the rush of intense game play without feeling confined to a couch or chair. Indeed, The Void would resolve current mobility limitations of VR and make immersive story telling more believable. Yes... the concepts he exposed to me are all technically very doable and, while I've yet to personally experience the game play, the description of how Ken's team has implemented the technology and creative environment is nothing short of genius. Take a look...

According to their website, The Void, a new form of entertainment will debut in the Summer of 2016 with their first Virtual Entertainment Center (VEC) opening in Pleasant Grove, Utah followed by other VECs opening in major cities across the world.

This is far more than simply VR optical goggles, it's full body immersion that takes Virtual Reality to the next level. And, there is a very good possibility much of Ken's technology will eventually become available to the home consumer.

Ken is not just targeting games. Entertainment and education may also benefit from The Void technology. In fact, the entire theme park concept underlying The Void is so out of the box that it might even make AR advocates like me VR converts.

UPDATE: I had intended to travel to Utah to experience The Void first hand. However, based on information that has recently come to me, I intend to wait 6 months
for Ken to complete much of his critical mission R&D so I can give it an
adequate assessment. I believe there are many technical and monetization hurdles to overcome not the least of which is the correct business model and the sourcing of sufficient quality content prior to creating an installed base. This might be overcome by partnering with branded theme parks. More to come.

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Barry B. Sandrew, Ph.D.

Founder - Graffiti Video, Inc.

BIOGRAPHY

This is a series of blogs by Barry Sandrew, Ph.D., an internationally recognized inventor, digital imaging expert and visual effects pioneer. Dr. Sandrew is founder of three visual effects facilities that were among the largest and most prolific production studios in Hollywood. Over the past three decades he has been and continues to be instrumental in evolving the entertainment Industry's digital standards and processes in feature filmmaking.

Sandrew earned his doctorate in neuroscience from SUNY at Stony Brook. After winning a 2 year NIH Fellowship at Columbia University, College of Physicians & Surgeons, he joined Harvard Medical School/MGH as staff Neuroscientist. In 1987, Sandrew left his academic and scientific career to found American Film Technologies (AFT) where he invented the first all digital process for colorizing black and white feature films.

At AFT he also invented a paperless animation process used to produce episodic animation for Fox Children's TV and a digital ink & paint and compositing pipeline that produced Spielberg's first digital animated feature film, "We're Back: A Dinosaur Story." Sandrew took AFT public while converting hundreds of movies for clients such as Turner, Disney, Warner Bros., Fox, Gaumont, TF1, ABC, and CBS, among many others.

In 1993 Barry Sandrew left American Film Technologies to co-found Lightspan, an animation and production edutainment studio that grew into one of the largest educational software companies in the U.S., marketing into entire school districts around the country. Lightspan ultimately went public and was later acquired by Plato Learning.

In 2000, Sandrew founded Legend Films, re-inventing colorization and a proprietary film restoration process using the latest in digital imaging technology. Over the course of the next 7 years, Legend Films converted to color approximately 145 black & white films as well as several TV series. Legend Films also produced visual effects for Scorsese's "The Aviator", HBO's "Entourage" and other high profile TV and film projects.

In 2007, with Jim Cameron's game changing "Avatar 3D" scheduled for a 2009 release, Sandrew leveraged his proprietary colorization pipeline, redirecting his company's entire R&D focus to embrace 2D-to-3D conversion and changing the company's name to Legend3D. Since 2010, Legend3D has lead the competitive field, producing 3D conversion and visual effects on over 35 of the highest performing box office tentpole films of the past 6 years.

In 2014, Dr. Barry Sandrew left Legend3D to focus on new immersive and web based media technologies as well his non-profit and for-profit board positions. He is consultant to Fortune 500 companies re: mobile 3D-sensing and motion tracking technology that he considers precursors to augmented reality. Most recently, he is Co-Founder and President/CEO of Graffiti Video, Inc. a company that is redefining the curation of web based media.